Tavis Smiley

Tavis Smiley (born September 13, 1964, Gulfport, Mississippi, U.S.) is an American talk show host, journalist, and political commentator.

Smiley grew up near Kokomo, Indiana, and attended Indiana University at Bloomington but left in 1988 to work for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. (In 2003 he completed his bachelor’s degree.) Smiley became a national broadcaster in 1996 when he took positions as a political commentator on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and as host of BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley on the Black Entertainment Television cable network. His interviews also began appearing on the national television networks ABC, NBC, and CNN.

In 2001 Smiley began hosting National Public Radio’s The Tavis Smiley Show, but he resigned three years later because he felt the network had not done enough to reach out to a diverse audience. He returned to the public radio airwaves one year later, however, with a new show over Public Radio International. In addition to his radio presence, Smiley launched an eponymous interview show in 2004 on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television stations across the country; the program won the NAACP Image Awards in 2005 and 2006. However, in 2017 PBS suspended distribution of the show after an investigation uncovered “credible allegations” of sexual misconduct by Smiley, and his radio show was canceled for the same reason. Smiley sued PBS for wrongful termination, and PBS countersued, alleging that he breached the morality clause in his contract. In 2020 a jury found in favour of PBS, ordering Smiley to pay back his past earnings.

Smiley wrote many books that addressed the issues facing African Americans, including Doing What’s Right (2000), Keeping the Faith (2002), The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto (2012; cowritten with Cornel West), and 50 for Your Future: Lessons from Down the Road (2016). He also edited a collection of essays by prominent intellectuals, The Covenant with Black America (2006). In 1999 he founded the Tavis Smiley Foundation, which convened an annual youth leadership summit. In 2004 he donated $1 million to Texas Southern University, which established the Tavis Smiley School of Communications and the Tavis Smiley Center for Professional Media Studies. In June 2008 Smiley resigned his position with the Tom Joyner Morning Show, claiming that he could no longer fit the program into his schedule.